Cebit 2008 Coverage

CeBit Coverage

Introduction

What a great day to go to the CeBit! Sunny weather, no rain, no wind, so much better than the snow we were supposed to be getting! Before we get going with the different things on display, I have to say that there was a lot of advertisement and hype about it here in Hannover over the last two or three weeks. The main tram stating, the Kröpcke, is plastered with G.Skill advertisements, there’s ads for all kinds of things pretty much anywhere you go in Hannover! But lets get going with what’s happening on the technology side of things, as there’s a lot to be seen!

Artic Cooling

One of the first booths I stopped at was Arctic Cooling, as they had some new coolers on display. Everyone knows the Freezer 7 Pro to be a cost efficient cooling solution for the LGA775 socket, however it’s a tower cooler, so it might not fit every case. Arctic Cooling now offers the Freezer 7 Low-Profile cooler, to fit even the smallest mATX cases.

Continuing with coolers, Arctic Cooling has teamed up with Inno3D to produce an 8800GT with an Accelero X1 (yes, you read correctly, the normal Accelero X1 fits the 8800GT!) for better cooling, but also to keep the card quiet. They are not only cooperating with Inno3D, but also with Elitegroup (ECS), who have equipped their 8800GT with the new Accelero L1 Low-Profile cooler and their 9600GT with the Accelero S2 as a passive, silent cooling solution.

But there is more from Arctic Cooling! In their Silentium series of cases, they were offering their own power supplies, which will now become available without the cases. They had a 550W version on display, the Fusion550, which was very compact but had the fan mounted outside of the metal casing, making it very individual in its appearance.

I spoke to the Sales Director of them, who told me they were planning more. A lower wattage model is being worked on, probably around 350W, but also a higher wattage model in the 600-700W range, targeting the enthusiast crowd. Arctic Cooling is known for quiet products, but the Sales Director went as far as to say that these Fusion series power supplies would be the closest to silent that you can buy. I certainly hope they keep this promise!

Coolermaster

Continuing with cooling products, I stopped at Coolermaster. With many of the recent top CPU coolers being tower style coolers, I was not very surprised to see Coolermaster launch some a new tower cooler. What I didn’t expect though, was the sheer size of this thing! The Hyper Z600 is plain huge, probably the size of a Thermalright SI-120, although at least double the height! They had an aluminium and a copper version on display, which reminded me a little bit of the XP-90 and XP-90C.

Coolermaster is also making a move in the watercooling sector. They had the Glacier 600 and the Glacier 9200 on display, the 600 being for ATI 2900XT/Pro cards, the 9200 for NVIDIA G92 based cards. These blocks were both full-coverage, but also single slot solutions, which is interesting in cramped cases or tight SLI/CF setups.

The Coolermaster Stacker has a legendary status amongst enthusiasts, for the size, but also for the looks of it. The Cosmos is beginning to continue this history of great cases. Coolermaster added some eye candy to their booth, showing off three different Stackers and 6 Cosmos cases, all modded or painted differently!